"Barack Obama: I’m the only major candidate who opposed this war from the beginning; and as President, I will end it. Second, I will cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending. I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems. I will not weaponize space. I will slow our development of Future Combat Systems. I will institute an independent Defense Priorities Board to ensure that the Quadrennial Review is not used to justify unnecessary defense spending. Third, I will set a goal for a world without nuclear weapons. To seek that goal: I will not develop nuclear weapons; I will seek a global ban on the production of fissile material; and I will negotiate with Russia to take our ICBMs off hair-trigger alert, and to achieve deep cuts in our nuclear arsenal."

The derangement of some of the posters here in their massive misunderstanding of Putin, Russian military capabilities, and the very laws of physics is truly absurd.

Any US President would retaliate against a country that attacked US soil or face impeachment. In fact, not even that. They would be removed by their own Cabinet within minutes. Anyone who thinks Obama would not respond is so far out in right field that they are not worth engaging.

That said Russia has no interest in Alaska. It would be impossible to hold due to supply issues already mentioned made much worse by US air superiority, and it is not even an efficient source of energy. There is no good place to sell Alaska's oil except the US, Canada, and Japan, none of which would buy from the Russians assuming the pipeline was intact which it wouldn't be.

For the Russians, if they really wanted oil, it would make vastly more sense to invade Kazakhstan which would geographically make sense and face little resistance.

Anyway how would the Russians invade. By sea? Their Navy is rusting in port and would be taken out in hours. By air? We would have absolute air superiority and they would run out of supplies quick if they managed to get anyone down. This is an absurd hypothetical. Why don't we talk about a Martian invasion? Thats a problem that is far more likely to afflict the next President.

No, he is a raving liberal. Liberals loath the military. That's what they do.

"Barack Obama: I’m the only major candidate who opposed this war from the beginning; and as President, I will end it. Second, I will cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending. I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems. I will not weaponize space. I will slow our development of Future Combat Systems. I will institute an independent Defense Priorities Board to ensure that the Quadrennial Review is not used to justify unnecessary defense spending. Third, I will set a goal for a world without nuclear weapons. To seek that goal: I will not develop nuclear weapons; I will seek a global ban on the production of fissile material; and I will negotiate with Russia to take our ICBMs off hair-trigger alert, and to achieve deep cuts in our nuclear arsenal."

Quote

2. Hitler's military genius is vastly overrated. The Civilized World owes a great degree of it's survival to the fact that he got along so poorly with Model, Mannstein, and Rommel, and so well with Goering.

He still believed that he would know about an invasion beforehand. His generals believed so as well.

Um, Hitler was aware of the invasion before hand -- all those troops being shipped to Britain were rather hard to miss. The Germans' problem was:

:The Navy and Luftwaffe were shattered, so Germany could not disrupt the buildup of Allied Forces nor prevent them from crossing the channel.

:The Germans defended the wrong part of France -- in fact, they concentrated troops in Calais assuming that the Allies would attack across the narrowest part of the Channel.

Even then, D-Day was a damn close-run thing.

Oh, and Obama's called for sending troops into Pakistan unilaterally. Stop being a moron, moron.

The derangement of some of the posters here in their massive misunderstanding of Putin, Russian military capabilities, and the very laws of physics is truly absurd.

Any US President would retaliate against a country that attacked US soil or face impeachment. In fact, not even that. They would be removed by their own Cabinet within minutes. Anyone who thinks Obama would not respond is so far out in right field that they are not worth engaging.

That said Russia has no interest in Alaska. It would be impossible to hold due to supply issues already mentioned made much worse by US air superiority, and it is not even an efficient source of energy. There is no good place to sell Alaska's oil except the US, Canada, and Japan, none of which would buy from the Russians assuming the pipeline was intact which it wouldn't be.

For the Russians, if they really wanted oil, it would make vastly more sense to invade Kazakhstan which would geographically make sense and face little resistance.

Anyway how would the Russians invade. By sea? Their Navy is rusting in port and would be taken out in hours. By air? We would have absolute air superiority and they would run out of supplies quick if they managed to get anyone down. This is an absurd hypothetical. Why don't we talk about a Martian invasion? Thats a problem that is far more likely to afflict the next President.

If you put an irresponsible neophyte in the Whitehouse, one who has said they would set about destroying our military, America WOULD be defenseless.

If you put an irresponsible neophyte in the Whitehouse, one who has said they would set about destroying our military, America WOULD be defenseless.

Clinton policies caused 9-11.

Obama policies could cause WWIII.

In the words of Sir Winston Churchill in 1940 shortly before Operation Sea Lion "it took us four years of intense effort and experiment and immense material aid from the United States to provide such equipment on a scale equal to the Normandy landing".

This bad fear mongering argument that is constantly perpetuated and promulgated amongst the ignorant those of the Right-Wing such as you is really getting ing annoying. Your constant driveling at how some of us in America are not willing to defend her is approaching such insanity and desperation.

In the words of Triumph the insult comic dog "your views swing more to the right than Ann Coulter's strap-on."

Quite frankly the most insane people in international relations are the Scheumans and Kagans who surround McCain. They know nothing of Putin, Russia, China, or of any other country's politics. They frankly don't care. Their sole knowledge base is military and it is based in the case of the Kagans on studying the Peloponnese wars and in Scheumann's case on the War of the Roses. In life, none of them have seen combat. All they know comes from reading the schematics of weapon systems and military strategy. As such, all they understand is military, and therefore all they suggest to deal with any problem is military. I had a conversation with Fred Kagan who is McCain's major military advisory. He had no clue who was running against Ahmadinejad next year, had no knowledge of recent events in Tehren, yet was advising McCain on Iran on the basis of simply studying their army. I have never seen a more poorly qualified group of advisers. At least Bush had competent people like Powell, Rice, and Hadley on a good day, around him. Rumsfeld was simply incompetent, not stupid or insane which are the two words to describe the bunch of testosterone-prone teenagers running his foreign policy shop.

In Obama's case his advisers favor diplomacy and have some knowledge about those they deal with. I think David Ross, his Middle East man is hopelessly naive about Iran but at least he knows something about the country. And Susan Rice handled Africa stuff under Clinton which is probably the most demanding portfolio in terms of the people you have to deal with, and it is a strong recommendation for her as National Security Adviser.

I fear for the survival of America as I have never feared before in the event of a McCain Presidency. I was actually pleased with Palin's performance on some of the questions in her interview since it seems she is at least not listening to the idiots who McCain sent to lecture on this stuff and it now looks like Bush is flying in some of his people to keep her safe from their odious influence. The survival of our country may hinge on an early departure from the scene for McCain.

The Russians would not invade Alaska: their long-term geopolitical goal is to expand to their four coasts: the Pacific (done), the Baltic (done, partially: St. Petersburg is vulnerable to being cut off), the Black Sea (done, partially, no good port in the territory they control: they'd want Crimea), and the Indian Ocean. Alaska does not fit into this goal, which I suspect is part of the reason they were willing to sell it in the first place. And unlike Americans, they think in the very, very long term.

Actually one of the reasons the Russians were willing to sell was that they were concerned that if they went to war with Britain again (as they had just a decade earlier) that the British might just take it without paying for it given how British North America was filling out and becoming a center of British interest again. Anglo-Russian relations have seldom been warm and even then only because they had a common enemy at the time.

Logged

Quote from: Ignatius of Antioch

He that possesses the word of Jesus, is truly able to bear his very silence. — Epistle to the Ephesians 3:21a

Why did no one ever point out how:1. The Bering Sea is far too cold and frozen over most of the year to be even remotely comparable to the English Channel? (He compared the idea of invading Alaska to D-Day)2. Unlike the English Channel, virtually no one lives around the Bering Sea, so the prospect of getting a huge Russian army to the coast would be daunting, and once they got into Alaska, they'd have to trek hundreds of miles across frozen wasteland and mountains before they even got to something worth taking? (All the while, being bombed mercilessly by the USAF)3. Russia would have virtually no allies in this absurd war, while most of the world would rally around us.

That sort of stuff was hinted at without going into detail, probably because the entire premise was so ridiculous and stupid it didn't deserve a serious refutation. Same with Russia invading Germany (which some blue avatar was seriously talking about earlier.)